Rosetta: I heard your plans for me - To die in glory.
To know the time of my demise and full closure of my grand adventure.
To go ever closer to the object of my employment - A death spiral - Do I have any choice ther than what my masters order? Why not a death defying stunt, rather than a lethal one?
Rosetta: Yes, I am now old with many of my faculties starting to fail - And I have lived a long and fulfilling mission, and like Philae before me I know it is time to slumber and accept my fate.
Rosetta: I do not want to be a burden on those who would spend considerable money on increasingly unlikely returns that I can achieve with diminishing resources and failing systems. By all means give me up for dead, as we naturally have had to for Philae - no-one lives for ever and I can face the end with a happy heart.
Rosetta: However, Philae was meant to be "grounded" and is born with slumber and hibernation in mind, but I was meant to fly and be free, yet also with slumber in mind. I was designed to hibernate and then be ready when the season returns to have photons on my plate to feel an extra surge of electricity in my body - That is my nature.
Rosetta: It is not in my nature to impact with anything, at any speed, with even negligible gravity. That way is Armageddon for me, with parts uncontrollably dismembering with no hope of future resurrection.
Rosetta: Although Philae and I end up on the same object (at least most of me - some parts may end up flung into space), The chances of Philae's resurrection are far greater than mine, yet in my own environment, that would not be so.
Rosetta: I plead to the powers that be, of my ESA masters that they not see to my death, but merely put me to sleep, and in the hands of the Gods, or future self funded adventurer masters - I wish no further burden to ESA.
Rosetta: For as it can be still, I wish to dream of future geriatric adventures to the same object - Perhaps one last fly by in 2021. The object of my obsession is not a static dead asteroid, but a dynamic, changing body that can do with even one more close look every now and then to see changes.
Rosetta: ESA, I beg of you to reconsider my fate, such that you could look at future generations in the eye and say: A probability greater than zero of resurrection and priceless new data is worth going for that extra cycle. We leave it to the future as to who will want to try. No promises... Only hope.....
Please share this post on all your social media! Make sure you voice your say against junking Rosetta spacecraft. There is a better plan!
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